Clearing my throat, I held the vial out in front of me. “Do you understand the process?”
He gave no indication that he’d heard me, so I went on to explain.
“According to the regulations, I need to issue you the Truth Serum first. Then I will ask you a question, and you will have to answer it under the influence of the serum. Do you understand the procedure?”
I was just about to give up when finally, the man gave the slightest of nods. He extended a hand, and I slowly dropped the vial into his outstretched palm.
“You’ll need to swallow all of it,” I said. “The side effects of the potion itself will fade shortly. However, if the answer you provide to the question isn’t sufficient, you may experience permanent memory loss.”
“I understand.” The voice was gravelly, as if formed from years of smoking. Or quite possibly, the raspiness could be a sign of illness. “May I?”
My pulse increased. “Yes.”
He held the vial under the sunlight streaming across the countertop. Inside the glass, black and white liquid swirled together, never mixing. The two were repelled from one another, symbolizing the delicate balance of truth and lies. No matter how hard a person shook the bottle, whether they boiled it or froze it, burned it or dumped it, the dichotomy would never bond.
Suddenly, the stranger uncapped the bottle and drew it under his hood, swallowing the Serum in one motion. He set the empty vial back on the counter before I had time to blink.
“Do you understand the consequences of The Elixir?” I asked in a rattling voice. Then I took Gus’s advice and listened to my gut instinct, adding a question of my own. “And do you intend to use it for good?”
Without a second’s pause, the gravelly voice answered in a slightly sing-songish tone typically present when the truth serum was active. “I both understand the consequences of requesting The Elixir, and I have only the purest of intentions for its use.”
“I need to prepare it,” I said, after waiting to see if the man’s memory aborted. When it didn’t, I cleared my throat. “It might take some time.”
“I’ll wait,” he said. “I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
“That should just about do it,” Gus said as I sprinkled the most finely ground Baby’s Breath into a miniature cauldron perched in the center of the table. It sat over a green flame, a special flame that we’d had to build from the twigs of the oldest weeping willow on The Isle. “Stir this while I grab the last ingredient.”
I stirred the potion, more grateful than ever to have Gus by my side. Without The Magic of Mixology spellbook, I would never have figured out the concoction on my own. Mixology ran in my blood, but it didn’t all come naturally. There was an element of experience and knowledge that I hadn’t yet built up in my short time on The Isle. Gus had memorized the book front to back, however, and remembered even the smallest nuances of the intricate potion.
I wiped sweat from my brow as Gus returned with a tiny eyedropper filled with red liquid.
“What is that?” I asked warily. “I don’t think I want to know.”
“Then why’d ya ask?”
“Do I want to know?”
“No,” Gus said firmly. “Take this and release exactly three drops into the cauldron. We wait one minute after that. If you’ve done everything correctly, the smoke will turn black.”
My hand shook as I took the dropper from Gus’s hand. My concentration was disappearing rapidly after having focused hard for the past hour, but I took everything I had left and squeezed exactly three drops of the solution into the pot. The seconds ticked by, turning into the longest minute of my life.
Even Gus tapped his foot against the wooden floor in impatience. He wasn’t a particularly patient man, but he rarely let his nerves show.
“It worked!” I gasped. “The smoke—it’s black!”
Gus reached forward and doused the green flame with a special white powder. The fire vanished, smoke coughing black puffs toward the ceiling.
“Quickly, pour this into a goblet,” Gus said. “It doesn’t last.”
“This potion is time sensitive?”
“It expires one hour from creation.”
“Is that another regulation?” I asked as I grabbed a large goblet from the shelf. It was gold and encrusted with gemstones. Such a pivotal moment in a person’s life felt as if it deserved our finest glassware.
“Intentions can change in a second,” Gus said. “The expiration date is for the protection of everyone. Should the person asking for The Elixir change their mind in a day, we’d need to re-test them with the Truth Serum.”